When Erica worked as a nurse in South Boston, in the outpatient clinic, they sometimes brought in convicts from the nearby high-security prison for medical attention. They were leathery men, with track marks and scabs and hard eyes, who endured her with a weary tolerance as she clasped blood pressure cuffs on their arms or explained the protocol of diabetes treatment. They bore no relation to her friend Nick with his flabby stomach and soft hands, who, like her, still lived within a mile of his mother, on their manicured island, apart from the grime and chaos of the city.
She forced herself up from the bed the morning after Amelia’s call, wiping her sweaty palms against her mouthwash-stained nightgown. She woke up Jesse and Jake and gave them Cinnamon Toasties and orange juice, remembering to tuck their swimsuits and tennis rackets into their camp bags. She fed and changed Sophia and waited outside with the boys for the camp bus. Once the bus left, she loaded the dishwasher. She drove to the gym and did V-steps and A-steps and bicep curls, avoiding conversation with Lisa and Justine, and then drove home. There were no police at the door and no messages on the answering machine. She didn’t know what to do next. She called Anders. He agreed to meet her in an hour in a park off of Utopia Boulevard.
She drove south down Utopia Boulevard, passing a multitude of stoplights, body shops, sad-looking brick garden-apartment complexes with patches of limp pansies, and a lawn warehouse store she’d shopped at once. She found the intersection scribbled on the back of her shopping list and, after a fruitless several-block search for a space, parked Vince Volvo illegally in front of a fire hydrant.
A couple of young mothers watched their toddlers play in the dirt by a metal jungle gym that reminded her of the old-fashioned unsafe one she used to climb in elementary school. At one bench, a couple of old men played cards; on another, a homeless man snored under a ripped black blanket. She saw no one who might possibly be Anders. She double-checked Vince Volvo’s locked doors. The sky pressed in on her, ozone-yellow. She had a splitting headache.
After Erica walked Sophia’s stroller up and down the path between the playground and the benches numerous times, a skinny guy in his twenties, with tight jeans hugging his hips and a thick shock of straight dark hair, sidled up to her and asked her if she wanted any T-shirts. Startled, she shook her head no, and then got it. “You bet,” she said. “White.”
He didn’t smile. He handed her a bag; she handed him the money he’d requested over the phone: $300, way more than Nick. He seemed put off by Sophia and not particularly friendly. The whole interaction took no more than two minutes. She scrambled back to Vince and turned on the air-conditioning, even though it made the engine hesitate unnervingly, and blew through a few red lights as she motored down Utopia Boulevard back to the expressway.
Throughout the hot, empty middle of the day, Erica followed Sophia around. She circled the first floor of the house, hallway to kitchen to family room to living room and back to the hallway, meandered around the backyard; dodged duck poop at the town pond; climbed through the ladders and tubes of the West Meadow Elementary play structure. The parks were deserted: the children away at camp; their parents scampering about like hamsters on a wheel; everything suspended, about to crash and break.
The twins were eating macaroni and cheese for dinner, Erica hovering over them playing with a plate of salad, when Ethan called from California.
“I wanted you to hear from me, before you heard it on the news,” Ethan said.
“About Nick Stromboli?” she asked.
“Nick who? No. They’ve indicted several Grant Fishel executives on securities fraud. Insider trading. Manipulation of markets. All kinds of bullshit. I don’t know how far this is going to go.” Ethan mentioned several names, the only familiar one being Stephan Langston.
“I can make markets move,” Ethan had told her excitedly, a couple of years before, when the big money started coming. “It’s just a matter of figuring out the system. It’s just a matter of math and staying a step ahead of everybody else.”
The idea of markets moving had tickled Erica’s fancy. She pictured Pathmark growing legs and walking down Northern Boulevard. She didn’t mention this vision to Ethan; he would have thought her stupid and frivolous. He would have sat her down and explained the difference between the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ.
“This isn’t going to affect you in any way is it?” Erica asked.
“Well,” Ethan said. “Well. It involves a lot of people I know. That I’ve worked with. I’m sure they’re going to want to question me.”
“Is that what the meetings in California are about?” Erica scraped uneaten noodles into the garbage.
“Well. Yes and no. Events have overtaken us, if you know what I mean. Listen, Erica, I have to go. I’ll call back when I can. I just wanted you to know. Is everyone all right? All the kids all right?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Erica. “Dylan is playing a magician in the summer performance at Whispering Wind.””
“Cool,” Ethan said. “Take care, okay? Don’t worry.”
New York was closing in on both of them like an iron claw. And even though the boys needed baths, and the diaper pail needed emptying and the clean dishes needed to be unloaded from the dishwasher and replaced with dirty ones, Erica paced around the kitchen, watching Sophia gurgle in her swing and a butterfly land on the zinnias outside the kitchen window.
The phone rang.
“Rikki, I just heard the news about Grant Fishel. Is it going to affect Ethan?” Debbie gushed concern, but Erica also detected a faint tone of satisfied suspicion. Debbie had always thought Ethan’s income was too mysterious in origin and too generous in amount to be trusted.
“No, no, it’s got nothing to do with his department.” Erica’s phone beeped. “Oops, I gotta go. Call-waiting.”
“Hey, Mrs. Richards, great news!” Ashley announced cheerily.
“Great news?”
“Jared’s address! I was at group therapy, and this kid Hayden, he was at the Pritima Center until two weeks ago, and he started talking about it. Usually people who’ve been there don’t talk about it. It’s like they’re under a conspiracy of silence, you know?”
“What did he say?”
“Well, he said it’s really horrible. They take these long hikes, out into the country, where it’s really hot, and they don’t bring nearly enough water or anything to eat, and they have to go to the bathroom in the woods. They don’t bring toilet paper. You have to use leaves. And they have to do these farm chores. They make everyone work like slaves. He said he passed out once, and he lost a ton of weight, and he’s still feeling really weak, and his parents are thinking of suing them.”
“But what about Jared?”
“Well, yeah. They weren’t in the same group, but he saw him on some of the hikes and at meals. He said the food is awful, all greasy, and that Jared looked real skinny and kinda sick. But, and this is the point, Mrs. Richards, I asked him, ‘Say, where is this Pritima Center?’ and he said that was confidential information, but then he cornered me while we were waiting for our parents in the parking lot, and he told me! It’s in a town called Burkittsville, South Carolina!”